“Something gone wrong?” Dwight asked, calmly. “Worse than I dreamed was possible,” Garner said. “I thought we'd have comparatively smooth sailing, but--well, it's your danged luck! Pole Baker come in this morning about two o'clock. I'd taken a room at the hotel to get away from those chattering boys so I could think. I couldn't sleep, and was trying to get myself straight with a dime novel that wouldn't hold my attention, when Pole came and found me. Carson, that rascal Wiggin is the blackest devil that ever walked the earth in human shape.” “He's been at work,” said Carson, calmly. “You'd think so,” said Garner. “Pole says wherever he went, expecting to lay hands on good witnesses who had heard Willis make threats, he found that Wiggin had got there first and put up a tale that closed their mouths like clams.” “I see,” said Dwight. “He frightened them off.” “I should think he did. He put them on their guard, telling them, without hinting at any trouble of yours, that if they had a call to court, of any sort whatsoever, to get out of it, as it would only be a trick on our part to implicate them in the lynching business.” “So we have no witnesses,” said Dwight. “Not even a photograph of one!” replied Garner, bitterly. “I sent Pole right out again, tired as he was, in another direction. He had a faint idea that he might persuade Willis's mother to testify, though I told him he was on a wild-goose chase, for not one mother in ten thousand would turn over a hand to aid a man who--a man under just such circumstances. Then I got a horse--” “At that time of night?” Carson cried.